H to go: Ohio State unveils hydrogen-refueling station as it revs up for fuel-cell-car test

Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) May 5--If you're stuck in traffic in the coming months, be sure to look around. You might get a glimpse of the future.This summer, researchers will road-test and study a hydrogenpowered Ford Focus in central Ohio. Ford is loaning the vehicle to Ohio State University's Center for Automotive Research, which recently built a hydrogen-refueling station.The Focus and the station are scheduled to be unveiled today at the center. The station is the first in Ohio and the 15 th in the nation, said Yann G. Guezennec, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio State.Experts say such stations are key in developing a distribution system to bring hydrogen-powered vehicles into the mainstream and help curb what President Bush earlier this year called America's "addiction" to oil."The future is very much uncharted," Guezennec said. "This is the first phase, to have a (hydrogen) vehicle and be able to drive with it."Rising gasoline prices in recent years helped prompt federal and state initiatives, including the "hydrogen highway," which is a plan to provide every Californian access to hydrogen by 2010.But there are many hurdles to be overcome before hydrogen vehicles are common in the U.S., including one often compared with the chickenand-egg scenario."You can't put out hydrogen stations if you don't have the automobiles, and you can't put out the automobiles without hydrogen stations," said Scott Samuelsen, director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California-Irvine.


Along with road tests, Ohio State researchers will study fuel cells to make them more efficient and cheaper.The hydrogen at Ohio State's refueling station comes from Praxair Inc., a worldwide distributor of industrial gases. At some point, Ohio State researchers will work to produce their own hydrogen, Guezennec said.But producing hydrogen cleanly and affordably isn't easy.In vehicles such as the Focus, engines are powered when fuel cells combine oxygen from the air with hydrogen, producing heat, electricity and water, with the latter escaping as steam. Unlike gasoline-powered vehicles, hydrogen-fueled cars don't release carbon dioxide, which some scientists think is responsible for global warming.Honda, which has more than 15,000 employees in Ohio, has developed a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle, the FCX sedan. The car is produced Japan and is in test fleets in California, Nevada and New York, spokesman Ed Miller said.But producing hydrogen to fuel those engines is difficult and not always environmentally friendly.Hydrogen is the simplest, and most common, element in the universe, but it usually exists with other elements. It can be separated by reforming natural gas, gasifying coal and using an electric current to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.But those methods have drawbacks. Natural gas and coal are nonrenewable, and stripping hydrogen from them can produce carbon dioxide. Splitting water molecules requires lots of electricity, which is often generated from sources that emit greenhouse gases.Guezennec said these drawbacks should be kept in perspective, given that gasolinepowered engines are based on a century of experience."The fuel-cell vehicle is less than 10 years old," he said. "Give the engineers and scientists some time and some credit."But the race is on."paul.wilson@dispatch.com